Entertainment

This Video Game Controller Pushes Back on Your Thumbs [VIDEO]

Meet the video game controller that fights back. Engineers at the University of Utah have designed a console controller with thumb-sticks that lightly pull and push on your fingers to more realistically simulate actions and experiences. They say the technology can enhance common gameplay scenarios such as shooting a gun, casting a fishing line or riding a wave.

“I’m hoping we can get this into production when the next game consoles come out in a couple of years,” William Provancher, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, says in a campus press release.

Provancher's device features a red "tactor" positioned in the middle of each thumb-stick. The tactors stretch the skin of players' thumbs to give directional cues and feedback. So if you're playing a fishing game and get a bite, Provancher says, "as the fish jerks the line, you can feel the tactor jerk under your thumb." Or, if you're playing a racing game and run into a wall or pole, the tactor jerks back to register the impact.

Provancher and fellow researchers found in a study that gamers were able to use the tactors effectively while holding the controllers at a variety of angles. The innovative device currently has a patent pending.

But Provancher's console controller is more than simply fun and games — it can lay the groundwork for more serious applications in future years. "By placing skin-stretch feedback in a game controller, it creates a nice testing environment for understanding human perception and cognition,” he says.

Where do you see this technology leading? Let us know in the comments.

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